Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Genuine question. If I was to list out MOTM awards for games Sheehan has played in, would you accept that as evidence against him being "our best performer in most games"?

A. I don't get the relevance of the statement. FWIW - Sheehan collects plenty of MotM awards.

B. I'm guessing there is a defensiveness in this to my comment on Dusautoir. I made the initial statement saying I thought he was one of the less deserving winners, and have since backed up that statement by illustrating how poor France generally were that year. They may have narrowly lost a RWC final, but, as I said, they also lost to Italy & Tonga that season, and only beat Japan, Canada, England and Wales to make that final - hardly running the gauntlet.

Dusautoir was unquestionably immense in the final itself, but I don't recall a massive string of incredible performances from him across the course of that season. As I previously mentioned, the BBC match reports of the England and Wales knock out games (which are both quite detailed in their write ups) literally don't reference him apart from one mention of being offside at a ruck, and his name in the teamsheets. It hardly points to evidence of some incredible performance from him.

In most cases, his award was an emotional reaction to a very strong performance in the final.

But, by all means feel free to make your case for why you feel he deserved to win it that year.

For me - there were much stronger arguments for Jerome Kaino, Richie McCaw, David Pocock or Ma'a Nonu that year.

You started this back and forth by quoting a comment I made (to someone else, and on an adjacent topic), and setting out how you disagreed with it. That's absolutely fine - you're free to your opinion. I didn't respond in the first instance to that.

You then brought it up again - by asking another poster their view on it, and whether they agreed with you.

And then, somehow circularly brought it back to the Dan Sheehan argument as well.

I've quite clearly laid out my argument for why I believe Thierry Dusautoir was fortunate to win the Player of the Year award in 2011. He was a great player, who had a great career, but, for me, he absolutely wasn't the best player in world rugby across 2011. I can't really prove a negative though - so I've done what I can do by illustrating how (i) France were awful almost that entire season, (ii) he did not have noteworthy games in the two knock outs leading up to the final.

I've invited you on a few occasions to state your case why you believe he deserved to win - this is something you've felt strongly enough to bring up on two separate occasions after all - and you've failed to do so beyond a recollection that you used to argue with random Kiwis about how good he was (Kiwis who also presumably it is inferred did not believe he was a justified winner).

You are also inferring I'm placing my emphasis on MOTM awards, player ratings and match reports when forming my opinions on players - and while I would say I definitely read a lot of that and am curious to see what others think, I have absolutely no issues forming my own views on players. I just prefer if I'm going to go to the bother of disagreeing with someone about something to have more to back up my argument.

I think you'll find this wasn't my argument for Sheehan either. It was one of about 15 different positive things I said for him, but my primary argument, which no one has actually countered or come back on was:

Dan Sheehan is a fundamentally better hooker and rugby player than Keith Wood (someone who was himself an incredible, world class player). Sheehan is bigger, faster, stronger and more technically proficient - a better passer, handler, tackler, rucker, and better entirely at set pieces. He's a better try scorer than Wood (something Wood was very good at), and is just in totality, a better all around player. I don't actually think any of these aspects of their game are debatable.

That was my argument - and, once again, I brought it up to highlight just how special a player Dan Sheehan is, not to denigrate a guy who I view as one of Ireland's greatest ever players.

I'm not relying on any arguments about MOTM awards or anything like that - that's my Dan Sheehan argument right there, and you'll find I made this case repeatedly in all of the following posts:

It's others (including you) who, haven't engaged with this point and have rather instead dragged it off in different directions talking about their respective leadership qualities, the quality of the teams they played in or they played against and other areas.

Okay, so are you saying that's what I'm doing with Sheehan?

Do you agree or disagree with this substantial point:

Dan Sheehan is a fundamentally better hooker and rugby player than Keith Wood (someone who was himself an incredible, world class player). Sheehan is bigger, faster, stronger and more technically proficient - a better passer, handler, tackler, rucker, and better entirely at set pieces. He's a better try scorer than Wood (something Wood was very good at), and is just in totality, a better all around player.

You've brought up the comment multiple times about saying he's our best player in most games, when the actual reality is what I intended to write there was he's amongst our best players in most games. That was my error (and a consequence of typing it on the phone on the DART after a few pints at work drinks!).

It wasn't my primary argument on this (something I've highlighted clearly in my last post), it was actually a kind of tangential discussion about how I was saying as good as I think he is, I think he's actually still somehow underrated internationally and actually within Ireland.

Iirc, he got his chance thru an injury to Kelleher? Tbh since then, it hasn't look like Kelleher has gotten close to reclaiming the jersey.

”He's still a test Lion and it is insane that Ireland, let alone Leinster, have two players in one position who can claim that.”

This is the most understated point of all IMHO

That's quite the leap about Ringrose no?

Quote didn't work for some reason..

@eagle eye

I don’t think it’s appropriate to be speculating about a players health on an online forum.

Concussion can finish careers suddenly (see Payne in 2017), but don’t think it’s helpful to speculate like that. Johnny Sexton spoke about it in his book.

Wishing both Ryan and Ringrose speedy full recoveries and confident they will be given the time necessary. IRFU have been proactive with this in the past with Doris.